bill brought into the House of Lords last year by Lord Sidmouth, for abridging the privileges of Dissenters, was founded on the very supposition that those privileges existed to the extent, which it is now argued they never had obtained.

It is not clear whether four or five descriptions of persons are included in the eighth section; 1: Persons in Holy Orders; 2. Persons in pretended Holy Orders; 3. Persons pretending to Holy Orders; 4, 5. Teachers, or (and) preachers, of congregations. Of the three first classes a full, but not perhaps a perfectly satisfactory account is given in a sensible and candid Tract, published a few years ago by Mr. Smith,* a barrister, who deduces from the history of the times that the Dissenters in Holy Orders were persons educated in the Established Church, but afterwards converted to the Presbyterian or some other sectarian doctrines, and that those in pretended Holy Orders were such as had received ordination from the Presbyterian Synod, instituted by the two Houses of Parliament in the year 1645.† Now though it is certainly true that the persons

* P. 27-31.

+ "Observations on the Statute of the 1 William and Mary, chap. 18, commonly called the Toleration Act, &c. by Joseph Smith, Barrister at Law." The date at the conclusion is, Bristol, Jan. 1, 1804.

alluded to by Mr. Smith fall expressly within the two first definitions, it by no means follows that either the Parliament of King William which took off these penalties, by the Toleration Act, or those of Charles the Second which had imposed them and had introduced those descriptions into the Five-mile Act, intended to limit the operation of the respective Statutes to persons who happened to be in existence, at either of those epochs. They may well be supposed to have foreseen, what has constantly happened, that some divines, ordained in the Church of England would from time to time depart from her doctrines; and could hardly fail to know that several Dissenting Churches pretended to the power of conferring Holy Orders, of which, being without episcopal authority, the law of this country would not acknowledge the reality.

The third expression---pretending to Holy Orders---Mr. Smith* considers as claiming Holy Orders, or in other words claiming to exercise the office of ministers not in the Church of England, but according to the rites and usages of Protestant Dissenters." This class (he says) must be considered as distinct from that of persons in Holy Orders, and also from that of persons in pretended Holy Orders, or we shall confound the distinction made by the Act; and if we recollect that none of the Protestant Dissenters then living could have been ordained under the ordinance

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* P. 31.
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of 1645, since the restoration of Charles the Second, and therefore, if ordained at all, must have received their ordination according to the forms of the different sects with which they were connected, it will be evident that, when the Toleration Act passed, this third class would be so numerous as to comprehend the far greater number of Protestant Dissenting Ministers.

"In this class, I think, may fairly be included such persons as were students for the Dissenting Ministry; for the ordinance of the 26th of April, 1645, recognizes that which then was, and I believe has ever since been, the usage amongst the Dissenters, namely, the occasional preaching of students for the trial and exercise of their ministerial abilities; by excepting from the prohibition to preach as before noticed, "such as were intended for the ministry, who were to be allowed for the trial of their gifts, which exception was evidently designed for students."

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This explanation appears to narrow the third class of exemptions beyond the intention of the statute. The phrase "Pretending to Holy Orders," if synonymous (as it unquestionably is) with claiming holy orders, surely imports much more than becoming a candidate for future ordination, though it may also include persons in that situation. In one sense it may be the same as looking forward to ordination and preparing for it; but it agrees also, and falls in more naturally with the notion of a present claim to present spiritual authority, or right to teach or preach,

which the claimant considers as amounting to ecclesiastical ordination, however inconsistent either with the rites of the established Church, or the usages adopted by particular Dissenting Sects; as for instance the Quakers, many of whom consider that they have a right to teach or preach, although not ordained like other ministers. And it may be fairly doubted whether, after giving the first place to the only Holy Orders recognized by the law, the act did not purposely adopt a phraseology proclaiming its ignorance of every other species of ordination, but extensive enough to include them all.

Such enquiries, however, are rather matter of antiquarian research, than of practical utility, if the main propositions be correct, which it is the principal object of the present argument to esta blish: That the magistrates in Sessions have no power either to refuse the oaths, or to enquire into the qualification of him who claims to take them; that such claim is a sufficient warrant for the Court to administer them, and the bare statement of the description in which the party wishes to take them, sufficient evidence of his answering that description; and that if that description is comprised in the eighth section of the Toleration Act, the Court of Quarter Sessions is by law compellable to administer the oaths and the declaration, and to permit the subscription to the thirty-six articles, of which the clerk of the peace is also compellable to enter a record, and to grant a certificate.

What is the object of the eighth Section? Solely to remove heavy pains and penalties, deeply affecting, not only the religious rights, but the property and personal liberty of certain specified liege subjects of the King, who are so far from criminal in the eye of the existing law, that in some cases their description actually entitles them to extensive and valuable privileges. By a former law, indeed, those who fall under that description incur severe forfeitures, unless they do certain acts, in which the magistrates must concur. Does not this necessarily confer on the parties affected by the law, an option to call upon the magistrates to concur with them in doing these acts?

If all religious and party feeling were laid aside, and we were examining the case of physicians, barristers, persons following any secular trade or profession, who might be made liable to penalties for exercising their trade or profession, unless they took an oath that they would conduct themselves honorably therein, which oath a particular Court was empowered to administer; could any man doubt that in such a case the Court would be bound to administer the oath to all, who in any of those characters might wish to take it? The parties are surely the best judges of their own situation and their own interests; and it would be thought preposterous in such a jurisdiction, to enquire whether they were or were not actually subject to the penalties, which they wished to make sure of avoiding by the simple process of taking an oath (we will sup